Item Description: Alyscamps Press, Paris and London, 1996. Softcover. 1st Edition in English; First Printing. Wraps, one of only 215 copies, the entire edition. Hardcore erotica, photographs and poetry, issued in a limited and clandestine fashion in 1929, this was reprinted in France in 1993. Here it appears in English for the first time, in 1996. A fine copy. It became quite a celebrated publication. ; Small 4to 9" - 11" ; 49 pp. Bookseller Inventory # 27979

Item Description: Alyscamps Press, 1996. Soft cover. Book Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Scarce first edition in English of one of the great underground books of twentieth-century French erotica, featuring verse by Péret and Aragon and four hardcore photographs by Man Ray (featuring Kiki of Montparnasse). Originally printed clandestinely in an edition of 215 copies in Belgium, most copies were seized at the border and never reached France. The Alyscamps edition of 1996 is the first edition in English. Translated by Zoltan Lizot-Picon, who has signed this copy on the title-page under his name. (The colophon notes that of 215 copies printed of this new edition, ten are signed by the translator and not for sale. It is unclear whether this copy is one of those or is one of the rest of the edition and signed though not called for.) A fine copy in wrappers, as issued. Signed by Author(s). Bookseller Inventory # 162

Item Description: Bruxelles Editions de la revue Varietes, 1929. 4to (30 x 20 cm). 4 original photographs with tissue guards, all captioned, text on green paper, limitation page. Soft wrappers in green iridescent calf, ovoid eye in silver calf with '1929' in dark grey curved figures in relief bordered with large false eyelash, binders mark dated 2003 to upper board, navy blue suede endpapers, housed in black box with navy blue suede lining, silver lettered on calf spine. A very rare erotic work in a magnificent binding by Jean de Gonet. A year after its creation in 1928, the Belgian magazine Variétés began to experience financial difficulties. Then-director Paul-Gustave Van Hecke, who had done a great deal to promote the work of Belgian avant-garde artists, decided that the best way to save the magazine would be to publish an erotic book featuring his own poetry. Thus the present work, which contains four original pornographic photographs by Man Ray, each captioned with a season and accompanied by the poetry of Benjamin Peret and Louis Aragon, was born. In one of the scenes, the woman depicted is clearly Man Ray's lover, Kiki de Montparnasse. The 1929 edition is extremely rare, as many copies were seized and destroyed by French customs officers on their delivery to Paris. The present copy was displayed as part of the Tate Modern's exhibition Surrealism: desire unbound in 2001, then at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2002 (p. 336 in the exhibition catalogue), though it had yet to be bound at that time. This copy on green paper is probably unique, not part of the original print run, which was limited to 215 copies. P. Pia, Les Livres de l'enfer, II, col. 868. -- M. Parr et G. Badger, Le Livre de photographies : une Histoire. Phaidon, 2007. -- L'Enfer de la bibliothèque. Éros au secret. B.n.F., 2007, n° 243, p. 421. Bookseller Inventory # 95020